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Topic: Rob zombie. Love him or hate him?

This is a conversation my other half and I had yesterday. He's not big on directors or even the actors names or styles etc. he knows shame meadows and Peter Jackson because they are his favourite and we got onto the subject of over rated directors. He hates tarrentino while I love him and have all of his films. Tom six came up and then Rob Zombie. Dan has seen house of 1000 corpses and the devils rejects but I haven't but watched his remake of halloween and dispaired. Both of us agreed we though he was over rated and what we had seen of his movies we hated. but then my other horror fan friend piped up and said she thinks he's a god of gore and has loved his movies and music. It seems you either love him or you hate him.

Re: Rob zombie. Love him or hate him?

House of 1000 corpses is on Netflix at the moment so might just give it a try tonight seen as I'm still on my free trial. Might as well get as much use out of it possible before the month is up I looked at reviews on Rotten Tomatoes and IMDB and it's very much 50/50 on his movies too. Lots of love for his music which I'm not entirely sure I've heard but not so much for his music. The praise seems to be for gore and insanity but the hate comes from people who like a storyline and character development to their horror. Meh. Spose I'll give it a go.

Re: Rob zombie. Love him or hate him?

Due to my youth, I haven't seen a lot of the classics. I love a bit of gore done well with some tongue in cheek comedy or even a bit of silliness. I loved the cross between gore and comedy with Evil dead and such. TCM 2 I think I have seen but can't remember if I liked it or not. But, I like character development and story lines. It'll be there for a while so I spose I'll get round to it eventually.

Re: Rob zombie. Love him or hate him?

Musically I was a big fan of White Zombie, and there are a couple of Rob Zombie solo tunes I think are actually pretty great (Living Dead Girl, Dragula).

Directorially I was disappointed with House of 1,000 Corpses. It felt like he fell into the pit that a lot of first-time directors fall into, where they try too hard to mimic the films that inspired them rather than really define their own voice. Considering up to that that point he'd only ever directed his own music videos, the direction was all sizzle and no steak. It didn't service the story in any real way, and the story itself was, as I said, just a mish-mash of the types of movies which inspired him.

But boy, did he knock it out of the park with The Devil's Rejects. That was the work of a filmmaker comfortable in his own shoes, with a strong, unique voice and who took familiar material and made it fresh and exciting. I can't say enough good things about it; the direction, the acting, the cinematography, the soundtrack...all are fantastic.

I'm a bigger fan of his Halloween redux than most. I appreciated that he didn't just copy the original like a lot of remakes do, instead offering his own spin on the source material. Granted the last half of the movie is basically the original Halloween condensed down to forty five minutes, but with a lot of extra grue, nudity and cursing (my only Zombie sore point, which I'll get to in a minute). But the first half was pure Zombie. Sherri Moon, who annoyed the living piss out of me in HO1KC, showed how good a dramatic actress she can be with the right material. I thought she was excellent as Mama Myers, and Daeg Farch...what a great performance from this kid. As for Zombie's Halloween 2, I thought it was a complete misfire on all counts. I don't know what he was thinking, but H2 is an ugly, sordid, uninspired and just plain nasty experience that I didn't enjoy a single second of. There's only one character in the film who comes off as sympathetic (Brad Dourif as the Sheriff). Even the "heroin" Lori Strode is annoying and unpleasant; I never once found myself rooting for her, instead wishing she'd shut her fuckin' whining and drop dead, already.

I am looking very much forward to Lords of Salem, though. After the prat fall which was Halloween 2, he's got nowhere to go but up.

On a personal level, it's safe to say I'm a fan of the guy off-screen and off-stage. He's obviously a massive genre fan, and despite his stumbles he has a genuine love for horror films and horror filmmaking, unlike a lot of directors who start in horror because it's "the easiest genre to become successful" and then dump it in favor of bigger, higher-budget, more mainstream opportunities. He's said there's no other genre he'd rather work in, and that's a big selling point for me.

Re: Rob zombie. Love him or hate him?

Like Lon I wasn't the biggest fan of House of 1K Corpses. I didn't hate it, but it did feel all to familiar for me also, it had its moments but it was just okay to me. Devils Rejects had the look and feel of a 70's exploitation film an awesome classic rock soundtrack, a lot of crazy and interesting characters, amazing dialog that I still quote to this day...tootie fuckin' fruity anyone? And as fucked up as the Firefly family was Zombie had me cheering and rooting for them by the end. Nothing but love for The Devils Rejects, one of the best horror films of the last decade or two in my opinion. For that reason alone Im a devoted fan.

I enjoyed his Halloween remake, for pretty much the same reasons Lon mentioned. He did something a little different with it, I liked that their was more baclstory to the Micheal Meyers character. I also enjoyed the extra grue we got from Zombies Halloween. H2 o can agree with most, while I thought about the first half was good the rest went strait to hell and not in a good way. It was a total mess.

Re: Rob zombie. Love him or hate him?

I feel he is overrated and not that good at making movies, I enjoyed Devil's Rejects but other than that House of 1k was just weird and not very entertaining, Halloween remake was alright but nothing special and the sequel was just terrible, so unless the new movie is really amazing I would say he has failed

Re: Rob zombie. Love him or hate him?

50/50 for me as well. Devils Rejects was a phenomenal piece of mayhem; one of the best of its decade. His Halloween remake I hated the first time out, with the Malcolm McDowell performance being a big part of that. But I love the Michael redux image. Nice mask. Got the BluRay, it's kinda grown on me despite McDowell butchering the Loomis role delivered perfectly by Donald P in the original. Halloween 2 was ghastly awful. But as the ole saying goes.... a director is as good as his best film. So, Devils Rejects kinda pits me in the Zombie plus column.

Re: Rob zombie. Love him or hate him?

This has been discussed quite a bit on several Threads.

I like Rob and many of his movies. I am somewhat alone here in that I liked Corpses more the Devils Rejects. I did like Devils Rejects too...though I had no sympathy for Otis and Company and wanted them to die, horribly.

Re: Rob zombie. Love him or hate him?

I think he’s a bit taken for granted now.

I remember a time when you heard RZ might be making a horror movie and you thought: F’ing cool. When I saw house of a thousand I had known he was a huge a horror geek. I saw the movie as homage like a fellow fan had made a film with just the intention of throwing in everything they liked about horror movies, no intention to break any molds just have an outrageous good time. Mosley and Haig were the icing on the cake, every seen with them great and Haig as Spalding just mesmerizing.

Also remember that movie almost didn’t come out. The studio didn’t know what to do with it and sure as hell didn’t want to distribute. Horror geeks know where to find all kinds of twisted fun at the local video store or online but seeing something like that at your local mega plex in the early 2000’s (not 1980’s or 70’s) was and is pretty awesome. When for the last 20 years the majority of horror movies at the mega plex have been date night safe I.E. final destination, dead silence, scream, etc. not that I dislike like those but House was a refreshing change.

Re: Rob zombie. Love him or hate him?

I kinda like H1KC, it had some nice acting and great visuals. I love that mechanical dude in the doctor/dentist chair towards the end. But when it was over, I was like, meh, not really anything I haven't seen before. I guess 30+ years or horror watching can jade you a bit.

Re: Rob zombie. Love him or hate him?

Can't stand the guy.

Musically, I hate dance music, so I hate his crap. It's the same dance beat, in every song, and they just blend together into one big, gyrating mess. Saw him live last summer, and while he did put on a flashy, energetic show, it bored me to tears.

As a director, he's a giant hack, who has no originality, or vision of his own. EVERYTHING he does, is lifted from 70's movies, and this isn't the 70's any more. Ho1000C was a train wreck, Devil's Rejects was okay... until the horrible Free Bird music video at the end... guh! Halloween(s) I never bothered watching. And for the love of G-d and all that is Holy, WHY does he put his friggin wife in EVERYTHING. She CAN NOT ACT! Rob, I don't care how good the poontang is... stop it!

Re: Rob zombie. Love him or hate him?

Zed_Chuva wrote:

Can't stand the guy.

Musically, I hate dance music, so I hate his crap. It's the same dance beat, in every song, and they just blend together into one big, gyrating mess. Saw him live last summer, and while he did put on a flashy, energetic show, it bored me to tears.

As a director, he's a giant hack, who has no originality, or vision of his own. EVERYTHING he does, is lifted from 70's movies, and this isn't the 70's any more. Ho1000C was a train wreck, Devil's Rejects was okay... until the horrible Free Bird music video at the end... guh! Halloween(s) I never bothered watching. And for the love of G-d and all that is Holy, WHY does he put his friggin wife in EVERYTHING. She CAN NOT ACT! Rob, I don't care how good the poontang is... stop it!

Don't hold back Zed! hehe.

I've put it on my watch list for now. There's a few other things I wanna watch first.

@Swollenguy. That's the problem I'm having at the moment. It feels like I'm seeing the same half arsed storylines over and over. It's all recycling. Even death scenes make me say "meh axe to the face? Seen it. Teenagers getting their heads lopped off? So yesterday!" so I am looking for something I can say, "Now that is gross! And new! and Exciting!" I expected it from Zombie when I watched the halloween remake, knowing he had a passion for all things gory and shocking but it really deflated me when the first hour was just backstory (which is the best part of the film) then went into a boring humdrum slasher. If I wanted regular formula I'd watch scream or I know what you did last summer.

I burn to find something less safe! Hence why I've left standard US slashers and monsters and gone to the Foreign sections to find something that's gonna leave me scared, stunned and occasionally grossed out! Even the UK are not doing it for me lately. Except Little Deaths. That was effin' mental!